Trusting God in the Dark

The first thing you need to know is this: I have missed writing. And I have been working on writing this post for weeks.

And the second thing - this is the hardest post I have ever written. Although I express myself best through my writing, the words just wouldn't come. I thought last summer with my husband's knee replacement surgery and subsequent complications and recovery was hard, but the events of the past two months make last summer look great.

It is amazing to me that in mid-June, for the first time, I actually had two posts all written ahead of time, proofed, and in my draft box ready to post. One of them was a post on recipes for Father's Day. And in one of life's little ironies, the other post I had written was about the joys of being a pastor's wife.

You will not be seeing that post. Because I am no longer a pastor's wife.

It brings tears just writing that, because I still can't wrap my mind around that. I have been a pastor's wife for over 21 years. But it's true and I needed to let you know that. I will not be sharing the details of what happened, because no good would come from that. What I will be attempting to share is what Lord has been doing in my life in a very difficult season. And that theme will probably continue for awhile - at least I hope it will, because God's strength and encouragement to me is everything.

The last several weeks I have felt like I was walking in the dark. Do you know what I mean? When it is really dark, you don't see even a glimmer of light. You fumble your way around and bump into things that you don't expect. You aren't sure how you got there, and you have no idea of the way out. And every time you feel like you are beginning to find your way out of the dark place, you find out you aren't any closer than you were before.

The Lord has been so good to give me a lot of very special passages and verses of Scripture lately, but one stands out for this season in my life: Isaiah 50:10b - "Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God."

That verse was just for me. It gave me my direction. When you are walking in the dark, you gravitate toward the only source of light that you have. And according to this verse, that light comes from my relationship with God.  I have to trust Him to know the way out and to lead me. I know from my relationship with Him that I can trust Him. I have to rely upon what I know to be true about God. I might not be able to see those things right now, but I know from His Word that I can rely on my God who is good, wise, who loves me, and is in control.

So over the past few weeks, what was already a close relationship with the Lord has become even more precious. I have spent hours in the books of Isaiah and Psalms, reading and journaling through them, and praying. It has been the only light I have. And it has been good.

I know my blog has changed a lot since I began writing it 2 years ago. What began as an account of my life and chronicled some lighter topics of our home, recipes, and grandchildren has become more a sharing of my heart and of the things that God has been teaching me. That type of writing seems to be my "niche." I hope that somehow, in some way, these thoughts might encourage you. I don't want to assume that everyone who  reads my blog knows the Lord in a personal way, so if you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and begun a close relationship with Him, please let me know. That would be my greatest joy.

I am not sure what God has in store for us. Stay tuned and when I find out, you will too! Right now we are in the midst of packing. We sold our house very quickly, which was both a blessing and a concern, because we had no idea where we were going to go. It is a little disconcerting, to say the least, to be packing up and preparing to move in a little over 2 weeks, and we still aren't sure where we are going or what we are going to be doing.

Trusting God in the dark.

Tenderly,
Kathi